RogueAC Posted October 3, 2008 Posted October 3, 2008 I wanted to post this in the coping forum because there is a ton of anger and resentment over there but I think maybe it should go here instead... I stumbled on some interviews with Dr. Frederick Luskin that I found interesting and I thought I might share some details my fellow LS users. FYI: Dr. Luskin holds a Ph.D. in counseling and health psychology from Stanford University and is recognized globally for his research on forgiveness and conflict negotiation. This is amended from interviews about his book Forgive for Good: First, forgiveness is not condoning unkindness. You do not have to run off and reconcile with someone who treated you badly. And second, on a very much deeper level, you do not have to start by forgiving the most hurtful person in your life. That would be like learning to mountain climb on Everest. You want to begin with someone really easy to forgive and build on that. Those two misconceptions keep people from even considering forgiveness because it is too awful; it is too far away and assumes that I will have to like them again. You don’t have to like them again. You just have to extricate yourself from your extra suffering and from your conception of yourself as a victim. Then you regain your life. If we want to set up our minds as hooks to hang other people, then we have to understand that those people are going to occupy a lot of space in our minds. And we have to determine whether or not it is worth it. Every time we critically judge someone who did a great unkindness to us a.) they are renting space in our minds, b.) they are activating stress chemicals and c.) we are announcing at some level that we have not gotten past something that is already done. So the question is, who is “hooked”? Who is the one with the impediment? I would argue it is more inside of me or I wouldn’t be upset about it. We are willing to suffer in order to make believe that we are holding people accountable. It is not such a healthy strategy. In any hurtful situation the question is how much suffering you are willing to experience now from something in the past that you can’t change. Since the past is immutable, it is never about the past. Forgiveness means that you take information and re-perceive it, re-process it with information from the present so that you suffer less. The essence of forgiveness is that something happened in opposition to your wishes and you can’t change it. The issue is, in the present moment, what can you do to suffer less? It can work in two ways. One, you disentangle yourself from your over-connection to this person. And two, you get a life. These two strands have nothing to do with the past. Now, when you disconnect yourself from that person, and when you get a life, your perception of the past will change. However, if you try to heal that situation without disconnecting and getting a life, you will just look back with pain. As you look at how you can suffer less, your compassion will grow naturally for both yourself and the person you need to forgive. You will begin to forgive to whatever capacity you choose. Accept what you can't change and grieve your loss. Wisdom is the ability to discern the difference between what you can and cannot change. We generally cannot change the actions and thoughts of other people or what happened in our own past. What we can change is ourselves. Forgiveness is one way to change ourselves. As we change, we go from anger and self-pity to understanding and goodwill. Becoming a more forgiving person helps us to change our focus from our wounds to the present and future possibilities for happiness. And, a summary of his 9 steps to forgiveness:Contact your beliefs and feelings about what happened and share them with people you trust.Commit to yourself that you will do whatever it takes to feel better.Realize that forgiving does not necessarily mean reconciling with the others or condoning what they did.Realize that the distress you feel is coming from your interpretation of what happened, not necessarily from the incident itself.Learn and practice a stress-management technique (yoga, breathing techniques, martial arts, meditation, etc.).Realize that you can control only your own thoughts and actions, not those of others.Turn your attention from your hurt feelings to finding a way to achieve your goals that does not involve changing the other person's behavior.Remembering that "a life well lived is the best revenge," realize that your negative response gives the other person power over you.Change your story so that it no longer dwells on victimhood, but focuses instead on your strengths: your ability to cope and to grow, and your heroic choice to forgive.
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